Arriva London introduces twenty-two new buses for the new route 450 contract

For the last five years, Arriva London have been successfully running the route 450 service from West Croydon to Lower Sydenham from their garage at Thornton Heath. We are now delighted to announce that, as from the beginning of October, we have again been awarded the contract for a further five years.

The new contract has seen the introduction of twenty-two new Euro 6 compliant Wrightbus StreetLite single-deck buses, the first to be introduced to Arriva London’s fleet.

Arriva London’s continued business development has meant that route 450’s base has been moved from Thornton Heath to our Norwood garage, helping to accommodate the route 64 buses at Thornton Heath.

The introduction of route 450 to Norwood required driver type-training on a demo vehicle for a period of 4-5 weeks, with all drivers having undergone time out on the road on this vehicle before they drove in service. In addition, there has been a significant amount of route learning to help drivers gain a good knowledge of where the route travels to and from.

It is not an easy task to design artwork for a bus over 11m long, over 4m high and 2.5m wide, but there were approximately 538 entries from several Primary schools! The sheer number and standard of entries was overwhelming!

The London Bus Awards gives TfL and bus operators the opportunity to recognise the commitment demonstrated on a daily basis from drivers, support teams and frontline TfL staff. The London bus network would not be the same without people of such a high calibre as those nominated for the awards.